There is no threat of a tsunami hitting the Philippines after the occurrence of a 6.5-magnitude earthquake off Kermadec Islands Region in the South Pacific Ocean on Tuesday morning, Aug. 31.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said the quake occurred at around 10:53 a.m.
"No destructive tsunami threat exists based on available data," it said.
It added that "no action is required" as there is "no tsunami threat to the Philippines from this earthquake."
Phivolcs defines a tsunami as a series of sea waves commonly generated by under-the-sea earthquakes and whose heights could be greater than 5 meters.
It is erroneously called tidal waves and sometimes mistakenly associated with storm surges, it added.
Phivolcs said tsunamis can occur when the earthquake is shallow-seated and strong enough to displace parts of the seabed and disturb the mass of water over it.